People Kill Me

Over the past few weeks, I've gotten increasingly annoyed at stupid people. Actually, change that. Stupid, annoying people. Apparently, it's not enough to be stupid. People have now have to be annoying as well. Maybe it's me, maybe I just have this highly sensitive "people are stupid and annoying" nerve, but whatever it is, it's been driving me absolutely nuts recently.

Take this chick in my class. She is the epitome of what a chick is. She's got this long, blonde hair that looks like she slept through the 90s and didn't realize the hairstyle changed. Ditto for the jeans and flowy, flowery shirts. She looks like she's at least a few cards short of a deck. (And yet, she is going to be a counselor. This should suprise me, but in truth, it doesn't. Most counselors - with the exception of the girl I work with - are like the blinder leading the blind.) Anyway, on the first day, she gave a totally off-the-mark response to a question by talking about how much she loves her boyfriend, even though it kills her to go home and "kiss that face" that is socially beneath her. For the record, we were talking about how children growing up in poverty have fewer opportunities that children who grow up in wealth.

This should be enough to annoy me about this girl, but there's more. Every week, she brings a cup of soup to class and a piece of bread, and if you ever saw her eat it, oh my god, it kills me just to think about it. I wince. It's like she's making a masterpiece, every time she dips her bread into her soup. She eats it like she's eating a gourmet meal. She holds the bread like she might break it in half, it's so delicate, and if that happens, she looks like she would just cry. Her face looks like a bashed-in scared chipmunk's, as she eats this stupid soup and bread combo, and every time she speaks, it's like it takes extreme effort for her voice not to break. She clearly enjoys being one of those thoughtful, non-offensive, PC-spewing, "I cry at Bambi and have bad 90s hair" chicks. She says things like "My heart breaks for children." Oh yeah, lady? My heart breaks every time I have to listen or look at you. Barf.

Then there's The Grinch. There's this girl in the same class who wears pearl earrings every week and a Polo button down shirt and cable knit sweater, and she's always frowning and making awful faces at anyone who says anything she might not totally agree with. I call her the Grinch because she's so negative that she would not only steal Christmas, but she'd climb down the chimney and take it right out of a kid's hands and burn it up right in front of him. I'm not even kidding. She also has the most giant chip on her shoulder that I've ever witnessed. One day, I want to walk up to her with a giant shovel and just knock her right on the shoulder, just to be like, "Phew, that should take care of that," but I'm afraid she'd kill me. She probably would. The thing is, she clearly has issues of her own because she takes offense to anything anyone says. When we were asked to define a family, she got offended that people's definitions might rule out an adopted family. When we talked about incest, she got offended that nobody took into consideration that step-family relationships might not be incest. She's just like a walking rule-follower/hall monitor in Burberry scarves and Ralph Lauren sweaters, and I don't like her at all, but she talks once every thirty seconds or wags her finger in someone's face when she's too busy sucking down Diet Coke to open her trap.

I spend three hours with these people. Oh, and there's this random dude who's a social worker who looks so whipped by his wife that her belt marks are practically there on his face. There's also this touchy-feely woman who makes sure to say hello and goodbye to everyone in class. I feel like we're at a twisted alcohol anonymous meeting when she does this, but we have to go through her ritual because it makes her feel like we're valuing each other. The best part of this came when this one cool guy, a guy about 45, said that she should shut up and quit "bitching" about the fact that teachers don't get paid that much, since they only work 180 days a year fro 7-2, and society will never pay more for this, and we all know this getting into it, so she needs to stop whining about it. This was my favorite moment in the class, ever, because it's right and she looked like she was going to cry. It's not that I enjoy people crying or anything, but if you can get one person to cry, one person to look like she's going to come steal and burn your Christmas tree while your 5-year-old puts up his favorite ornament, AND make Chipmunk Chickie stop mid-bread-scoop, you've accomplished something. Even Belt Marks had a look of pain across his face, perhaps not entirely unfamiliar to him.

In other annoying people news, my sister asked me to write my ideas about people's AIM profiles. Everyone knows my thoughts on expressing love in profiles (lame, don't do it). Everyone knows my thoughts about reading into what people write in their proflies (lamer, don't do it.) But here's a new one. What's up with the trend of putting messages to the dead in your profile? I don't mean to be (too) crass, but really. It's like this new thing, that it's hip to write messages to people who have died. Do these people think that there's some ESP link between instant messages and the dead? Can you talk to the dead or reach them through instant message? Maybe Montel should check it out instead of that whackjob Sylvia Browne. (I, for one, think this lady CAN talk to the dead. Where else would she be getting those magnificent make-up tips?) But here's the real thing: who in their right mind thinks that this is a good way to HONOR the people who died? Do you think someone's grandmother is like, "Oh, I want to be memorialized through an instant message profile"? Of course not. It's a stupid practice.

I do have to note, though, that the person who asked me to write about the stupidity of AIM profiles - my sister, that is - believed for YEARS that sleeping with a huge stuffed bear would save her in case robbers came into the house. Apparently, she believed that if robbers saw the bear, either they would be scared away by him (and if they knew he came from some dingy T.J. Maxx shelf, this tactic might have worked), or they wouldn't see her sleeping right next to him. The second one is fair enough, because my sister is quite small, but at the same time, this theory also requires robbers to think that people give stuffed bears entire beds to themselves. Oh, my god. I was just going to write, "And nobody does that," but you know what? My aunt does that. In fact, my aunt gaves an entire room - two twin beds - to several stuffed animals. Oh my god. Oh my god!

This reminds me that I was telling my friend at lunch yesterday a story about an aunt of mine. She brought her bird to the beach and was traumatized when the bird flew away. My friend of course laughed and then said, "Is this the aunt with all the stuffed animals?"

"No," I sighed.

And, to finish up, a bunch of random complaints about the people I have to deal with (i.e. the world at large):

1. There's this big virus going around campus that involves insane amounts of time devoted to being in the bathroom. This grosses me out, obviously, but what's kind of ridiculous is the flyer that was sent out warning people about the virus. It basically says that if you are cleaning up someone's puke or shit, that you should not put your face near it. Thanks for the advice! Not only did I plan on cleaning up other people's puke or shit, but I also planned on putting my face right next to it as I wiped it all up with my bare hands!

2. Lindsey Jacobellis realllly annoyed me on Friday. Okay, so I"m not totally into the Olympics. I'm not into watching pre-recorded footage when I could just find out what happened by checking online. Also, I have an idea for NBC. Everyone was talking about Johnny Weir. So I wanted to see what this guy was like, so I tried to watch some of the coverage one night. It was a monumental waste, because they showed a thirty-second clip at like 11:45, two hours after I had turned the TV on. Why not post on NBC.com the schedule of events according to what people really want to see? Like on Friday, tell people, "At 8 and 11 PM, you can see Lindsey Jacobellis's run and her interview afterwards." Then, I know when to check in. Instead, they just do general "Women's Snowboarding." You could wrap up the entire Olympic coverage in about 10 minutes if you just showed the winners and the real losers in each event. Bob Costas wouldn't have much to do, but then again, he doesn't have much to do now except sit in front of that cheapo fireplace.

Anyway, back to Lindsey Jacobellis. In case anyone lives under a rock, she's the snowboarder who was so far ahead of everyone in her race that the NBC people pretty much had to choose whether they were going to show the competition or Lindsey, since both wouldn't fit in the same TV screen. Then, she goes and pulls a tough stunt as a little show-off bit, falls, and gets the silver medal. She brushes it off, like, "Well, I messed up the trick, I was having fun, I got caught up in the moment, I just got a silver medal." And as a result, there are two camps: camp one, who says that she's 20 years old, she's the second-best snowboarder in the world, and we are a horrible society for not applauding that achievement and instead nitpicking at the fact that she didn't get the gold; and the second camp, who says that she is an American brat who doesn't value the Olympics.

See, I'm in the third camp. She's a moron! Who in their right mind is like, "Okay, I am going to win a gold medal if I just don't fuck up... what the hell, I think I'll do a really tough trick to try to impress a bunch of people?" Umm, isn't winning the GOLD MEDAL impressive? "Well, doing this little flip turn thing will REALLY get them!" Helllo, moron! Do you think a figure skater, who knows her performance is going to probably win her the gold, decides at the last minute to do a triple (whatever one of the tough jumps is)? Holy Michelle Kwan No! Absolutely not. The only good thing about this is that there's now the phrase "Pulling a Jacobellis," apparently. Well, doesn't that just roll of the tongue. I want to know the first person who uses that seriously in conversation. I'm gonna give that person her gold medal.

How do you think that fool from Switzerland feels? Or wherever the girl was from, who got the gold medal? I mean, didn't she win solely because somebody else totally messed up? I love how people are making all these lessons from it - "This just goes to show you, if you just go at your own pace, you might just win!" "This just goes to show you, showing off gets you nowhere." "This just goes to show you, slow and steady wins the race." "This just goes to show you, don't ever count yourself out!" Riiight. But the truth is, slow and steady doesn't win the race. The turtle didn't win because he kept going at his slow-as-molasses crawl. He won because the hare got pompous and took a nap. The hare was a moron, so the turtle passed him. Lidnsey Jacobellis was a moron, so the next snowboarder caught up. Listen, people, this lady from Switzerland benefitted because Lindsey Jacobellis is a moron. The true lessons they should be teaching the kiddies on Monday are simple. It's pretty much, "Hope you get to compete against a moron." Leave it at that.

3. Johnny Weir-do, who claimed that missing his bus cost him preparation time and comfort and that his aura was all wrong. Just when you thought it was impossible for him to make himself any odder or easier to make fun of, he outdoes himself. If you were Johnny Weir (well, first of all, god help you), would you really make any references to auras? I wouldn't.

4. Yesterday I went to ask if someone had received an application I sent in, and the girl working the desk looked at me like I was a martian. "Uhhh..." she kept saying over and over again. Look, I work in a setting where people call and ask about applications. You can get up and check. You can.

5. Along the same lines, under no circumstances am I ever going to call the Educational Testing Service and request a test score to be re-sent to our office. First, that's not our policy, to shell out extra money for the morons who can't figure out how to send their scores to the right location, and second, I don't care that much about you. You can take "that much" out of the sentence, too, and the meaning will remain.

6. If you are a cab driver, and you are an hour away, say it. Fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes whether you are in Boston, Mexico, Latvia, Lebanon, Jamaica, you name it. I'm not falling for this shit anymore.

7. If you live in East Bumfuck, it's your ethical responsibility to give better directions that the street name and shouting randomly over 10,000 party guests. Also, make sure your directions are correct.

8. Singers on American Idol, who think they can sing, but can't, are obnoxious. Is it just me, or is the gimmick of "Let me dress up insane and hope my freak-ness creeps them out enough to let me on the show just for kicks" getting really old? I hope it's getting to everyone, but I suspect otherwise, because the highlights are always of these freaks who are dressed in robot costumes. I think it's waaaay funnier to watch someone who thinks she can sing genuinely try to sing and then be told no thanks. Maybe that makes me a bad person, but I don't care.

9. I played Bingo on Wednesday night and I was all excited to play, because the people hired real bingo callers. I was thinking these people were going to be total crackpots, but instead, they were just these plain, boring, monotonous callers. It was like they were reading their tax returns to us. Horrible job. (By the way, I just got queasy thinking about taxes.) The only good thing was that I won. I shouted Bingo pretty loudly too, and I've told everyone I know that I won Bingo. People look at me kind of funny, like, "Why did you play Bingo this week?" but you know what, I don't care. Some people got engaged this week. I played Bingo. So be it.

Tax Break(down)s

Yesterday I got a big slap in the face from reality.

I did my taxes. Wait, take that back. I talked about doing my taxes. I would have done my taxes except I was missing one of my W-2 forms, so I have to go track that down. And that's just the beginning of it all: to even do my stupid taxes, I have to put forth the effort of searching out how it ended up that I didn't receive my W-2, which is, as my father informed me, legally due to me by February 1st. Already, problems. Problems already.

My initial tantrum, due to me missing my W-2, was nothing compared to the fit I threw for the rest of the hour and a half that my father and I sat in the GSU, him trying to explain to me the logic behind taxes and filling out the forms and figuring out deductions and rules, and me trying to explain to him that I think the entire concept is a big crock.

Turns out, neither was really possible.

I think taxes are a bunch of bullshit. I really do, but nobody else seems to be with me on this. In the past twenty four hours, I've talked to several smart people about taxes, and it's very disheartening to hear the responses - which, by the way, are pretty much apathetic nods. Nobody seems to care about taxes. Everyone seems to just accept that every year, they will give back an insane amount of money to the government, just like that, without any resistance or complaint. People care more about the fact that they have to fill out paperwork than they do that filling out that paperwork will either result in losing money or reminding them of how much money they lost over the course of collecting their paychecks.

Well I won't have this. I just won't. I'll pay my taxes. I considered not paying them, but my father told me that if I don't pay them, the government just comes up with punishments and charges me more money. This sounds even worse, so I went with the lesser of the two evils and decided to just go along with the rest of the herd and pay my taxes. But I won't be happy about it. I refuckingfuse to be happy about it. Or be okay with it. Or pretend that it's just a fact of life that I have to accept. I'll say that I do it because I don't want to deal with the worse things that will happen to me if I don't comply. And that's it.

Here's the thing. I vividly remember getting my first paycheck of the spring. I had worked a ridiculous amount of time before receiving the check, and so I calculated it in my head and realized that I was going to be receiving a mothhher of a check. Then I saw the stub, and I realized that it was at least a few hundred dollars short of what I had envisioned. Now, look, I know my math is pretty shoddy, but even I could do a better estimate than what the check was showing. So I looked it over and realized (and here was the death of my work-to-earn-money innocence) that the discrepancy was because of taxes. In my mind, I had worked the time and therefore, I was owed the money. In the government's mind, I had worked the time and was owed only some of the money because they were also owed money. Riiight. How does this not sound like the big brother/sister insisting on earning a percentage of the little kids' lemonade sale, even though throughout the whole sale, the kids worked outside and poured the lemonade and got the customers while the big kid got to sit inside in the AC? It sounds like exactly the same thing.

The argument that people have been using against my argument is this: I pay taxes, like for social security, for my future. Well, here's a wake up call, freaks: there is no national financial future, except for a big bleak one that holds only a garbage can big enough for all of our wasted dollars in social security taxes. People tried to make me feel better about the fact that I don't get any refund from any of the social security tax dollars I pay. They said that even though I'm not putting it away from my future, and even though the deficit makes any idea of future financial hope a joke, I'm paying for people like my grandparents. This just makes me want to tell my grandmother to be nice to me and eat the soup I probably helped pay for. It doesn't make me feel any better.

Did you know, for instance, that if you pro-rated the amount you have to pay for taxes if you were working full-time, you'd have to work until May to earn enough money to pay your taxes? Four months, you work for nothing. I did the math, and I worked about three weeks for absolutely nothing. Obviously, compared to the four months, that's not bad, but if you figure that I'm only working about 12 weeks a year seriously, then that's a lot of time. What's the point of working when all that's going to happen is that you're going to have to give back?

You know what, I'm tired of this. Why can't I choose a celebrity to pay my taxes for me? You know how they have "Big Brothers/Big Sisters"? Well, how about a "Big Brother/Big Sister Tax Edition." Everyone's crazy about adding "editions" to existing successful businesses and concepts, so here's one for you: a wealthy celebrity, or for that matter, it could just be a wealthy person, takes on a non-wealthy person and pays his or her taxes. See, the thing is, everyone reading this thinks, "Okay, that is ridiculous, what a crazy idea, nobody will go for it." Well, who the hell came up with the idea of taxes? And what morons okayed the practice of taxing people who are still in debt, or still trying to pay off loans, or who are just starting out in life? Who said, "Yes, let's have a system where people come take my money from me, which I'm working so hard to earn? That sounds like a good plan!"

Here's some irony for you: my guess is that Thomas Jefferson or another bigwig decided on this tax business, which is quite ironic if you consider that part of what began the whole brouhaha with the New World/England was the whole taxing issue. And what do these people go and do? Set forth taxes. Don't people learn anything from the past?!

Obviously not. Thomas Jefferson didn't have any problems paying the taxes though, because he was famous and earned all of his money off a plantation that he had run by slaves. I bet if he had to pay his employees (the slaves), he wouldn't have all that money to just play with and send into the government without any problems. But he didn't have these issues to consider. Wealthy people can just pay taxes without really feeling the pinch at all, so why do they get all the tax breaks?

This brings me to the person I'm reallly upset with. I'm not into politics, but when it affects me directly (I know, I know, everything affects me if I really knew about politics), I have to say something. I want George W. Bush to pay my taxes. I want him to contribute some of his fortune into fixing the deficit that his administration let happen. Have Dick Cheney and his hunting buddies (well, maybe a few of them, ex-hunting buddies) put some cash into that. How is it that these politicans, with millions of bucks in the bank, can have the audacity to get up in front of the American public and tell them that all that money that they made - all that money that they contributed to, through all of these goddamn taxes - is gone? Worse, that even contributing current and future taxes won't get us back to anywhere good for a very long time? How is everyone okay with this?

Well, I'm not. I'm not okay with the fact that I'm paying for a pretty much defunct social security fund. And I'm not okay with paying all these taxes and not getting the refund back that I was expecting - not nearly even close to it. And I'm definitely not okay with all of the complications that go into having to figure out all the paperwork about how much you have to owe. What the hell is that about? If I've had my taxes withheld, why can't I just click a check on an online site that says so and have everyone leave it at that? Isn't it ridiculous to anyone else that I have to spend significant time telling someone else how much I owe THEM? In what world does this make sense? Have you ever heard of a client or patron figuring out his bill or ringing himself up on the register? Absolutely not. If you want money from me, tell me exactly how much I owe and we'll go from there. But I have to figure out these booklets and these forms and track them down? I don't think so.

And yet, we do it. We all have to do it. I don't have a choice because otherwise I'll be in even more trouble. So I have to spend the time figuring out the forms and finding out why I don't have one of my W-2s. And I need a job to support myself, so I'm going to have to get one, even if a third of the time, I'm working for nothing. When I expressed my dismay at my taxes, my father looked at me in bewilderment. "I've never seen someone complain this loudly about their taxes," he told me. "It's something you just have to do. Everyone does it."

"Look," I told him. "Just because everyone else is going to walk off the cliff doesn't mean I have to follow."

Well, as in too many other instances, I was wrong. I'm going to have to walk off that stupid cliff just like everyone else and pay my stupid taxes and get half as much as I should back in my refund.

And, as always, there's one last bit of irony in my life: somewhere along the way, as I was complaining about how much we pay in taxes, I realized that part of the reason we pay so much is to cover for other people. Like the poor, but also for the people who cheat on their taxes and don't pay. For example, Richard Hatch, of Survivor fame, didn't pay his taxes on the winnings and now he's in trouble and because he didn't pay, I pay more. This is obviously outrageous and unfair, but the kicker, and it's a kicker, is that my father is a defense tax attorney. If people didn't have tax issues, he wouldn't have a job. I'm sure he will enjoy me portraying his career in such a positive light, and it's not just that people cheat on taxes - but also that they make mistakes or have issues paying them in general (and you know what, I can undersatnd that) - but if people just paid their taxes without issue, he wouldn't have a job. So there's some irony. Maybe I should like taxes because their existence provided my father with a job and me with everything I needed growing up. Maybe if I were mature, I could look at them as bittersweet.

Too bad. I'm not mature. I don't like this whole tax thing at all. I was planning on getting some serious cash back. I was planning a shopping spree and everything. Turns out, I'm going to just have to work more instead. And "more" really is the operative word there, because apparently, to make the money I estimate I'm going to make, I have to be working more hours than I originally figured. I'm not going to change the system. I'm not able to fight the system. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And me, I'm the loser right in between who thinks she's working to get richer but in reality is working to pay for the poor getting poorer and the rich who want more tax breaks.

Goddamnit, I got schooled.

Something to think about

I watched an interview with the Ebersol family recently for a project. Dick Ebersol and Susan Saint James (NBC sports executive and former actress on "Kate and Allie') had a son, Teddy, who died in a plane crash in November 2004. He was 14. Charlie Ebersol, who was about 21 at the time, was also on the plane. He survived the crash, and he even went back into the plane after it came to a stop to get his father. At the time, he blamed himself for not being able to find Teddy and save him too, but what he did not know at the time, and what is now the only thing that allows him to forgive himself for not saving his brother as well as his father, is that Teddy Ebersol was only found two days after the crash, when the a crane lifted the wreckage and found a "whole little boy" (as Susan Saint James says) under it all. As it turns out, it would have been impossible for Charlie to save his brother.

Yeah, this one pretty much got me. I used to not cry in movies. I was stoic until Joaquin Phoenix in Ladder 49, and since then, I'll cry when someone wins the Showcase Showdown on the Price is Right. It's just pathetic. Well, yeah, I was pretty much a mess watching the whole interview, but I figure that's okay. Show anybody an interview with a 22-year-old guy who's still wrecked that he lost his brother; show a father who talks about his son who saved him and the son who died; show a mother who still can't bring herself to clean her son's room out because, though she says she knows it's impossible, she still thinks he's going to come home, and I think you give the viewer a free crying pass. Yeah, you just do.

Here's what got me about Teddy Ebersol: Dick Ebersol was obviously into sports, as the head of NBC sports. But Teddy wasn't into it. A few years back though, he suddenly became this huge Red Sox fan. He knew every statistic, was into every part of the Red Sox team and baseball in general. When Susan Saint James and Teddy were driving one summer, she asked her son why he had suddenly become such a big Red Sox fan. He told her it was because of his father. He told her that he didn't have a "language" to connect to his dad through, and seeing as his dad was such a big sports fan, he figured sports was the way to go. So he did it, and he loved it. I don't know of many kids, twelve or thirteen years old, who have it together enough to recognize that they don't really connect with their parents, let alone the ability to go out and find that connection and pursue it. He must have been a good kid.

The thing is, it's just heartbreaking to listen to a family talk about their missing piece, especially when he seemed like such a genuinely good guy. Hearing Dick Ebersol tell everyone how Teddy wanted to connect to him, how Willie Ebersol - another brother - was grateful for staying up too late the night before the crash to talk with his brother, how Susan Saint James still keeps one of his worn shirts - with the sleeves rolled up, just how he would wear it - in her closet, it's just too much. You wonder, why do these people go on these shows and give these interviews? Why do they do it?

I don't know. The Ebersols have some wisdom to share, if you ask me. They've got a good philosophy about not being bitter, about moving forward, about life having to continue even when it seems too hard. They're sad, and everyone's sad for them, but there's an acknowledgement that even though the sadness probably will never go away, there's going to be some happy stuff along the way. And I think that's valuable, even if it's hard to hear.

Someone I know watched the show before I got to it. When I told her I wasn't looking forward to watching it because I knew how sad it would be, she said, "You know, I thought the same thing at first, but it's not that bad. It's sad, obviously, but if I were ever, God forbid, in that situation, I hope I would have the wisdom they have to act the way they are."

After watching it, she was right. If you've got to be in that bad a situation, you can only hope to have the grace that this family does going through it all. Sure, they go a little off here and there with some feel-good stuff, but I'll give them the pass. If you can come out of this thing not only alive, but able to recognize and celebrate the good that still exists in life - if you can even find it in you to do that - then, well, you've got something.

This whole thing has depressed me. I've written enough about it. It's just that you see something like that, and where do you go from it? I guess to where it always ends up, with the same old truth: life's not fair. People are always saying that life isn't fair, and you hear it all the time, how people are wronged, how good people get the shit deal in the end. Well you know what, it's true. Life isn't fair. It really isn't.